Vigee Le Brun ART Page 125

ART PAGE 125

	Marie Antoinette-1776-77 Chateau Versailles Vigee Le Brun's earliest commissions for the Queen's Household were to copy four existing portraits of the Queen by other artists. Angela Demutskiy has identified this as Vigee Le Brun's copy after the portrait by Adolf-Ulrik Wertmuller. "This Marie Antoinette more resembles the portrait by Wertmuller than it does later portraits done by Madame Le Brun. [She] has made some obvious changes (or what Vigee Le Brun might have felt were corrections) to Wertmuller’s Antoinette, by reducing the eyes and rouge, tilting the head more, and nearly omitting the dimpled chin, creating a seemingly chubbier Marie Antoinette. It is the near absence of the dimple that tells me that this was painted before Madame Le Brun ever had a sitting with the Queen."
	Mme la Comtesse de Provence - 1782 oil on canvas, 31.8 x 25.5 in, 80.7 x 64.8 cm Marie Louise de Savoie (1753-1810) wife of King Louis XVI's brother. A variant (Art Page 85) was also found. Go to the Comtesse de Provence Page for more information on this painting.
	Countess Urbana as Flora - 1793 oval, 73 x 61 cm Vienna Kunsthistoriche See Art page 26 for a nother image of this painting (or a copy). That image is called Contess Kaganek as Flora. The artist wrote, “... I found lodgings within the city of Vienna … and immediately set about painting the portrait of the Ambassador of Spain’s daughter, Mlle Kaguenek, a very pretty sixteen year old...”